10 Horror Movie Idiots Who Made Simple Solutions Look IMPOSSIBLE
2. Literally Anything But Cutting His Foot Off - Saw
In Saw's grisly finale, Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes) resorts to cutting his own foot off with a rusty saw in order to free himself and attempt to save his kidnapped family from Jigsaw.
It's a drastic, panicked decision, and one which Gordon could've easily avoided if he employed just a teensy bit of critical thought.
Before Gordon opts to saw his foot off, he desperately tries to reach the mobile phone that got launched into the middle of the room when Jigsaw administered an electric shock to him.
The phone is just a few inches out of reach, so Gordon tries to use a small box in the room to get the phone, but to no avail. But why didn't Gordon use the saw instead?
It's longer than the box and could've been quite easily used to grip the phone and pull it towards him, in turn allowing him to dial 911.
Granted, the film does attempt to lampshade this by having the phone make a weird dial tone when Gordon tries to call 911 earlier, but FCC regulations ensure that even tampered-with phones can dial out to emergency services.
And even if Gordon couldn't use the phone, he probably could've used the saw to cut through the chain's padlock, which looked in considerably worse shape than the bulky chain itself (which the saw couldn't cut through).
Or hell, instead of cutting his foot off, maybe just break it and slide it through the shackle, like Detective Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) did in Saw III? If a strung-out cop can do it, a doctor with encyclopedic knowledge of human anatomy surely could, right?
Basically, Gordon went straight to 11 in his manic quest to save his family, when he certainly had a few other, less-debilitating options at his disposal.